Texas tort reform withstand trial lawyer legislative assualt

Opinion Journal:

Texas recently finished its legislative session, and the best news is what didn't pass. Namely, some 900 bills put forward by the tort bar.

The plaintiffs-lawyer lobby spent $9 million in last year's state legislative elections to help smooth the way for these bills, which were designed to roll back tort reforms passed in recent years, or to create new ways to sue. Yet that money wasn't enough to convince most Texas legislators to give up two-decades of hard-won legal progress, which ranges from class-action clean-up to medical liability reform.

Among the more notable failed proposals were a bill that would have shifted the burden of medical proof away from plaintiffs and on to defendants in asbestos and mesothelioma cases; an attempt to rip up Texas's successful system of trying multidistrict litigation in a single court; and legislation to allow plaintiffs to sue for "phantom" medical expenses.

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There still is probably too much money in the mesothelioma cases. The "non attorney spokesperson" are continuously running ads looking for clients in Fox News Special Report. They make the disease sound like a winning lottery ticket. I find the ads to be very offensive and I am disappointed that legal ethics permit them.

You can bet that the trial bar will be trying to push the sate back into the Democrat camp in 2010 and will be spending money especially in places like Houston where they managed to change a lot of judges in 2008. They will also be invested in the Governor's race. I doubt Gov. Perry would have signed the bills they were pushing this year.